Since the start of the year, I have only managed two full days of birding and one twitch for the Killdeer in Hampshire. The rest of my birding so far this year has been short local trips. The weather has also played a part, with seemingly day after day of rain.
The weather forecast for today was the best it's been for many days, so Brian made arrangements for a day of birding in Suffolk and Norfolk.
We drew up a list of targets we wanted to try to see; this would depend on whether certain birds showed or how long we wanted to spend searching for them if they didn't.
We arrived at our first site in Lowestoft and joined a small group of birders searching for the Hume's Warbler that had been in the area since early February. With no sign of the bird, we split up and searched the areas south and west of the tennis courts. It was thirty minutes later that the warbler was heard calling and then seen in the treetops. It disappeared, but soon reappeared shortly afterwards, this time lower down in the bushes on the west side. It was elusive, but with patience, it would give good views. We also enjoyed good views of a Firecrest, which was flitting about in the same bushes. Another addition to my year list came when a single Barnacle Goose flew overhead calling.
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| Hume's Warbler |
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| Firecrest |
Ness Point was only a few minutes away, so we decided to look for Purple Sandpipers. Unfortunately, it was high tide, and we failed to find any, so we moved along the coast to Kessingland to look for Shore Larks. We knew that four birds had been wintering in the area, but that they could be difficult to track down among the shingle and marram grass. We took the clifftop steps down to the beach and walked north. Eventually, we found the four birds, but not before carefully navigating the flooded areas that were between the Shore larks and us.
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| Shore Lark |
After climbing the steep and uneven steps back up to the clifftops, we headed back to Ness Point and another search for the Purple Sandpipers. This time, we walked further north and searched the area in front of the caravan park. Brian had walked on ahead and spotted a single bird on a concrete wall feeding with two Turnstones.
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| Ness Point |
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| Purple Sandpiper |
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| Turnstone |
Dad and I hadn't managed to see any winter swans so far this year, and we also wanted to try to see the Iceland Gull at Sea Palling. We had a short discussion and decided to look for the Iceland Gull first. We arrived at the car park and walked up the ramp onto the beach. We scanned the rocks in front of the Lifeboat Station without any luck, so we headed along the beach to scan the mass of gulls gathered on the foreshore. As I was setting the scope up, Brian picked out the juvenile Iceland Gull among the masses of Herring and Black-headed Gulls. There were also a couple of Caspian Gulls found.
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| Iceland Gull |
The last trip was a ten-mile detour to Ludham Bridge, where we found a mixed herd of 50+ Whooper and Bewick's Swans. At the end of the day, I managed to add eight-year ticks to my year list, while Brian added four to his, and Dad added seven to his as the walk to the Shore Larks was too much for him.
